Morden

A crumb of Nova Scotian basalt now underwrites a chunk of the world's petrochemical industry.

Henry How described mordenite in 1864 from the basalt cliffs at Morden on the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. Its open framework makes it a useful molecular sieve, and synthetic mordenite is used as a catalyst and sorbent in refining. The same mineral was for decades also called ptilolite until the two names were shown to describe one species.